TELEVISION; Perp Nation: 'Cops' and Its Steady Run of Bad Boys

By NED MARTEL

Published: November 10, 2007

As ''Cops'' presents its 700th episode this evening, Saturday nights on the networks are resembling an abandoned neighborhood. Once upon a time, American families gathered there to see Carol Burnett gamely sing along with Julie Andrews, or Mary Tyler Moore throw a calamitous cocktail party, or even Charo make her umpteenth ''Love Boat'' appearance.

Then the great scattering began -- audiences opted for cable shows, for movie rentals and, more recently, for various downloadable pleasures. The Saturday night viewers who remain often answer the siren call of ''Cops,'' watching arrest after arrest in a series that reinforces the notion that order can always be restored.

This Fox series -- now rerun elsewhere -- brings the police blotter to life, as if video had been added to the squawking radio channel on which police dispatchers deliver their lingo in staccato bursts. A ride-along, three-segments-each reality show, ''Cops'' is unnarrated, except when an officer driving a patrol car loosely decodes the cryptic numerals exchanged with the precinct, thus warning the viewer of what is to come.

This is the suspense portion, as lawmen and camera crews approach the crime scene, which could be an urban alley, a suburban street or a dirt road in the country. Seeing the suspect for the first time -- even with his or her identity obscured by pixels -- is climactic, especially after a foot race through a cornfield or a tire-busting, rim-riding car chase. The inevitable, often hard-won surrender is, in reality TV parlance, the reveal. How will the suspect react? What explanation will be offered? Is any semblance of denial plausible?

It's a pretty shopworn device after 18 years, as catchily monotonous as the reggae echo of ''Bad Boys,'' the show's theme song. And yet ''Cops'' consistently improves on the scripted norms of police procedurals: It displays all the ugliness and ingenuity that even classic first-responder shows like ''CHiPs'' and ''Emergency!'' lacked. Dipping into a dozen episodes can teach viewers various ways to spot a suspect, subdue the inebriated and quell mayhem before someone gets hurt.

The officers have seen almost every permutation of sin. So it's kind of a thrill when they say, ''That's a new one.'' The focus on mundane details can be fascinating: One patrolman explains that a car cutting through rain with an open window is a sign of trouble -- it may be stolen, the window smashed in. An officer in San Bernardino, Calif., says of his territory, ''It's a good place to work -- a lot of activity.'' He means good as in there's a lot of bad.

Fuzz and fiend prowl the same frontier, and even the tensest altercation can be followed by a sort of communion. Walking a newly handcuffed driver through a cow pasture near Pomona, Calif., an officer speaks in a patrolman-to-perp shorthand, noting how hard the suspect was trying to escape and where he messed up, almost like a shortstop recapping a recent out with the base runner he tagged.

But in spite of the palpable danger and the blood spilled on both sides of the law, the series seems more like a sanitized catalog of arrests, an infomercial for various police fraternal orders, than a collection of true-crime stories. Epithets? Racial tensions? Excessive force? The videotape either omits or never captures such presumably common extremes.

For example, there is a testy exchange when a white New Jersey officer objects to a Hispanic suspect's being too familiar -- ''I'm not your Papi!,'' he snorts -- but confrontations are rarely nastier than that. Since the series always reaches the same crime-doesn't-pay conclusion -- no one undeserving is handcuffed -- police departments from South Florida to Southern California, not surprisingly, have allowed ''Cops'' crews to ride as passengers.

Still, if skepticism can be set aside, there are moments to appreciate that are far stranger than fiction. Indelible spectacles include a pickup truck flipping end over end and, when the clouds of smoke and shattered glass settle, its intoxicated driver emerging dazed but apparently uninjured; a snarling German shepherd tearing a suspect's trousers to ribbons; a bald, tattooed colossus of a man reduced by Taser to a whimpering, trembling mass.

At its voyeuristic best, the series comes across as if the ghost of Weegee were documenting a car chase ?a ''Bullitt,'' shot in the exurbs where Richard Prince has been monumentalizing muscle cars and skid marks. The guiltiest of pleasures, ''Cops'' is debased poetry in motion: I hear America squealing.

ILLUSTRATION: Since 1989 ''Cops'' has brought cinéma vérité coverage to police patrols, be they down the mean streets of the city or the dusty roads of the country. (FOX; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY THE NEW YORK TIMES)